Human rights or climate wrongs: is Tuvalu the canary in the coal mine?

The Pacific Island State of Tuvalu recently reported that it had just days of water supply left for its population of 10,000. The Government has declared a state of emergency and rationed each household…

Authors

Disclosure Statement

Keely Boom works for the Climate Justice Programme. She has received funding from Friends of the Earth, the Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF and Greenpeace. Keely is undertaking a PhD in Law at the University of Wollongong. Her PhD research looks at whether countries can sue each other over the impacts of climate change, with a case study of Tuvalu and Australia.

Aleta Lederwasch works for the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney. She also works with the Climate Justice Programme on a voluntary basis.

Other flow-on effects of diminished access to safe drinking water include increased susceptibility to disease and political unrest.

The right to health includes both physical and mental health. Protecting the right to mental health will be important given the inextricable link Indigenous people have with the land.

Right to self-determination

A key political right brought out by the crisis is the right to self-determination. The right is protected under Article 1(1) of the ICCPR.

Climate change threatens the right to self-determination of Tuvaluans by threatening their ability to remain a nation of people.

Tuvalu will become uninhabitable long before the land is actually submerged, as drinkable water becomes scarce and food crops fail.

Political and social instability caused by climate change threaten to eventually erode the ability of Tuvalu’s Government to meet its functions, including safeguarding human rights and democratic systems.

Right to a healthy environment

Related to all rights identified above is the right to a healthy environment. This recognises that all people have the right to live in an environment that is safe and suitable to ensure their physical and mental health.

The right to a healthy environment is a recent concept. It was developed out of recognition that human impacts can degrade the environment, which has potential to threaten the life and wellbeing of people.

Upholding the right to a healthy environment involves protecting Tuvaluans' cultural life and the traditional plants and animals on which they depend.

A human rights-based approach to the water crisis brings to light the significance of local Tuvaluan communities actively participating in responding to Tuvalu’s adaptation needs.

The need for deep greenhouse gas emissions cuts

Tuvaluan Prime Minister Willy Telavi pleaded at the UN General Assembly for the international community to act on climate change or his country would not survive.

Should we create a new treaty for ‘climate refugees’?

What rights would the people of Tuvalu have if their land does become uninhabitable?

Some have advocated for a new multilateral treaty to deal with those who face displacement as a result of climate change: “climate refugees”.

Yet, the people of Tuvalu have rejected the notion of “climate refugee” status and some have stated it is offensive. Their reasons are complex, but it’s clear the term “refugee” has negative connotations.

Also, applying the term to climate change does not fit the legal definition of a refugee.

Refugees are people who are fleeing from their own government. But in a cruel twist of fate, Tuvaluans would be fleeing to the very governments that are responsible for their state’s demise.

Tuvalu’s proposal: a state within a state

Tuvalu has proposed that its people relocate to Australia and, interestingly, continue to function as a sovereign nation.

Under the proposal, Tuvalu would maintain its seat at the UN and continue to exercise its economic exclusion zone of about one million square kilometres of sea resources. Tuvaluans would hope to eventually return to their homeland.

The Australian Government has not commented on the proposal. But the idea is creative and may provide the best human rights outcome for Tuvalu’s 10,000 citizens.